Midwifery & childbirth, family

Archive for the ‘Restless Legs’ Category

Staying alive

Well, I go away for a year, come back and WordPress has changed. Blocks?? I will be interested to see what it looks like.

My life plods along. I’m still a Parish Councillor, just. I don’t do bureaucracy. I know that is a surprising statement from someone who was an NHS employee for 3 decades but the NHS was NOTHING in comparison to local government. A fence is in desperate need of painting. Residents offer to paint it, using a good quality wood paint, the same colour as it is at the moment. NO. NO says the Chair. Not before you have completed this risk assessment and answered this extremely insulting to the intelligence, poorly written email. Following on after 2 similar experiences the residents rounded on the council and told them to paint it themselves. The Chair also believes that they have the final say over everything, and that unless they want it to be discussed, it will not be discussed. It would be so easy to step away and leave them to it but I will not give in. I signed up to act in the best interests of the residents and that is what I shall continue to try to do.

The residents association is a reality now. It became official in January and is going great guns. They have resurrected the fete on the common, complete with live music. After an interesting exchange with the Parish Council (no you cannot put a tree on Parish land) they have erected a Christmas Tree on private land and will be having a public switch-on event.

After 12 years of no contact with my Father he agreed to see me again. Contact involved me doing everything he wanted, the puppet master was controlling my life again. I was not permitted to ask why he had chosen to have no contact with me, or my children, for over a decade. The one occasion when I tried he gave a performance worthy of an oscar for ham-acting, much clutching at his head and wailing, however, no explanation. After helping him move home 3 times, and 3 years later, I have given up. He is 97 years old. He could die at any time but he could live for a few more years yet. Why have I decided to close the door on our relationship? I have realised that he really couldn’t care a jot about me, or my family. The reason he agreed to contact again was for his own interests. He was running out of friends and other family, so he decided that I was better than nothing. Our relationship is toxic, having contact with him makes me unhappy, very happy. It is a constant reminder that my Father shut me out; that he wasn’t there as a Grandad for my children, their other Grandad died when they were babies. That, although he must have known that his Grandson was terribly ill and close to death, he made no attempt to contact either of us. I have tried to talk to him about this. I felt that if we could speak about the history, that if I could understand why he had shut me and mine out, we could begin to establish a happy relationship. He blocks this, I have no idea why. I feel sad that he will take his side of the story to the grave with him but it is now obvious that this is what will happen.

Staying alive. That is me. I have given up smoking. After 40+ years I have not had a cigarette for 3 weeks. My quit app tells me that I have regained 1 day and 21 hours of life; that I have saved £143 and that I will gain 3Kgs in weight. Hmmm. The money is worth it, but the weight gain? Not so sure.

Other health news is that I have changed GP’s, and that I appear to have been put on a drug that has banished my restless legs. Yes. Rather than attempting to mask it with codeine, I am now taking Ropinirole, and it’s working. I can sleep, all night but, if I can’t sleep I can lie in bed. I can just lie there and relax. It’s all good in the hood.